Examine the term “common sense.” The word common implies that something is available to everyone and not elitist or complex. Sense implies something you know through your senses. You can touch, smell, taste or see it. Or you might use a sixth sense – intuition.

A convicted sex offender, Thomas R. Herman, was found living in the basement of Spokane police Cpl. David Freitag’s home. This fact was discovered when Herman was arrested by the FBI on Tuesday for allegedly possessing child pornography, including a compact disc depicting an adult raping a 7-year-old girl.

Authorities have no evidence that Freitag was involved in the porno stuff, too. But he does have children, including a young daughter, and he did know Herman’s status as a sex offender. When the news broke, it made the front page of this newspaper and showed up on TV news.

A sex offender with child porn is always a disturbing story, but what elevated this to front-page news was the fact that a police officer made a common-sense error. You do not allow a convicted sex offender to move into your basement if you have children in that home. You do not bring a convicted sex offender into your family fold if you are a police officer – not necessarily because it violates any policy but because you hold a position of trust and authority.

“Integrity is everything. Honor is everything in law enforcement. If you lose either one, you cannot perform this job,” Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said Wednesday in connection with an unrelated matter. Knezovich had just fired one of his jail supervisors who is under suspicion for having affairs with female subordinates.

Recent high-profile cases involving Inland Northwest law-enforcement officers might all have been avoided had those officers asked one common-sense question: “What will this action look like when it is discovered and revealed to the region via the print and broadcast media?”

Common sense would have precluded a Spokane County sheriff’s detective from exposing himself to a woman working at an Airway Heights coffee stand.

Common sense would have precluded the two Spokane police detectives from deleting digital photographs of a nearly nude 16-year-old taken during a sexual encounter at a Spokane fire station.

Common sense would tell you that sheriff’s deputies shouldn’t watch movies during their shifts, steal cigarettes from people they arrest or spare retired cops their traffic tickets. (A former sheriff’s deputy has alleged these behaviors are going on in the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office.)

When law enforcement officers violate common-sense workplace rules, everyone in that workplace suffers. The police officers, detectives, sheriff’s deputies and jail supervisors who do their jobs ethically, diligently and with plenty of common sense – and they are in the majority – get tainted with the bad judgment of the few. They all take a hit in the integrity and honor department.

A decision filled with bad judgment usually signals its problems ahead of time. If it looks, tastes or smells funny, or if someone has a bad feeling about it, pay attention. Common sense could be at work.